Forces War Records have exclusively released the World War II Italian Prisoner of War Camp nominal rolls for you to search online. For anybody researching a Prisoner of War, this could prove to be a crucial source of information, perhaps offering a missing jigsaw piece to your genealogy puzzle. The newly transcribed records are likely to include: name, initials, rank service number, regiment/corps, and final Italian camp location. The vast and ever-growing Forces War Records database is cross-referenced — so you may even find out further nuggets of information from this one search. During the Second World War, over 170,000 British Prisoners of War were captured by German and Italian forces, after defeats in France, North Africa and the Balkans.

The majority of men were caught between 1940 and 1942 and then imprisoned in POW camps stretching from Nazi-occupied Poland to Italy. Over 75,000 of those that were held by Italy were recorded by the ‘Casualty (PW) Branch of the Directorate of Prisoners of War’ in London, during the war. Because Forces War Records are constantly searching for rare lists and updating their data, this is the first time that records in this collection have been transcribed — now available to search online, from the comfort of your home. The niche military genealogy site’s UK-based transcription team works with data from a variety of sources to unlock as much data as possible for anyone researching their family history. Forces War Records gathered and transcribed the Italian Prisoner of War camps nominal rolls directly from the National Archives, under reference WO392/12 ‘Imperial Prisoners of War in Italy’. We are always delivering fresh information and releasing exclusive lists and nominal rolls, which could mean brand new insight for you.